As an AAT licenced member I've been contacted and asked to help sign off an ACCA students performance objectives. I have no previous experience in this area and wondered if anyone could give some advice on; a. if this can be done by an AAT member? b. if there is a process that needs to be followed to do this? c. what amount of time this may take? d. if it is ethical to charge when undertaking this work? Any advice would be appreciated Thanks Martin

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I assume you are being asked to sign off the PER statements. Ideally the person signing off the document would be an ACCA member, failing that, a member of a CCAB body, or failing that a person with relevant experience. But the process is mainly centered around an ACCA member. The PER requirement is a series of questions, some compulsory and some selected from a list of options, for the student to answer. The questions are designed to test that the practical experiences of the student meet the requirements of becoming an ACCA member. It is essential that the person (or persons as each question is signed off individually and different people can sign each question) know the student, the work carried out and how the student has performed.

The student is required to record in their ACCA student record who their Workplace Mentor is (the person who will be signing the questions off). This nomination will give the Mentor access to the students electronic PER in "myACCA" on the ACCA web site (not sure how this works for non ACCA member Mentors, but there must be a guest access I would guess). The student enters their answers in the electronic PER and the work place mentor electronically countersigns. The whole point is that the work place mentor ensures the student gains the necessary experience and properly demonstrates that. Because of this, and because it is advancing the profession, I think it would be unethical to charge.

With ACCA students who work with me (even if only for a short time), I have periodic (monthly) meetings to see what experiences they require to complete the PER. We will discuss which of the questions we need to concentrate on and draw up a list of work that will enable the student to answer the question. I ask the student to draft up their answers in "Word" so that I can assess it before entering in the PER. I can then review the answer, suggest amendments (students tend to undersell themselves and we end up beefing the answers up), this review also helps to identify gaps so we can do a bit more practical work and select other questions to work on. Once both the student and I are happy with the answer, the student can load the answer up and I can sign it off.

In terms of time, reading the answer and signing it off only takes a short time. But that is not the point, at the stage of signing off, the workplace mentor should have spent time with the student mentoring them and understanding practical experience progress.

Many thanks for your advice SteveThe whole process does seem to require knowledge of the student and the work that they undertake and therefore an established working relationship with the student. I think in this instance I don't think I would be the best person to help them on this occasion but will try to give them some advice on who they should be approaching for their PER.